Professor Michael McMahon:

In our analytical note from 2021, we looked at health spending in the public sector, and compared it internationally. That is a really good resource. It does a great job explaining a lot of our thoughts on health spending. We found that Ireland is a high spender on public healthcare, and it has a relatively young population today even though it is aging rapidly. It is unusual to see it as one of the high spenders in that regard. The Deputy raised a good point, which is that we might talk a lot about standstill costs barely being met, but we are already at a point where health spending is quite high. We are not in a position to say whether it is too high, or where there could be savings or anything like that. However, we know it will probably be disruptive if we do not continue with yesterday's policy and increase it in line with the new pressures we are facing year to year, which are demographic pressures - an older population, more people and the rise in prices. That needs to be tracked and there needs to be a clear sense of where savings are going to come from. We lack a lot of information on health and that is not really clear to us, so it is hard to say.